


I Have Found Favor In Your Eyes

by Lily_Padd_23



Category: Fried Green Tomatoes (1991), Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe - Fannie Flagg
Genre: 1930s, Aftermath of Violence, Alcohol, American South, Author Is Not Religious, Big Gay Love Story, Canon - Book, Canon - Movie, Canon Compliant, Canon Disabled Character, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Canon-Typical Behavior, Christianity, Domestic, Domestic Bliss, Domestic Fluff, F/F, Family, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, Food, Found Family, Getting Together, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Lesbian Sex, Married Couple, Married Life, Mild Sexual Content, Mild Smut, Missing Scenes, Parenthood, Period Typical Attitudes, Pregnancy, Religion, Religious Conflict, Religious Discussion, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Southern Lit, lesbian couple
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-21
Updated: 2021-03-25
Packaged: 2021-03-27 22:21:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,134
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30129711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lily_Padd_23/pseuds/Lily_Padd_23
Summary: Ruth and Idgie's love story.Ruth 2:13
Relationships: Ruth Jamison/Idgie Threadgoode
Comments: 5
Kudos: 8





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

> This will be filling in Ruth and Idgie’s love story based on the book and the movie beginning when Ruth came back to Whistle Stop. I’m relying mostly on the movie, but I’ll be pulling a lot of world-building, details, and further characterizations from the book as well. No racist violence or language will happen “on screen” or be referenced in detail. I also know that the source material has it’s typical problems of a white woman in the 80s trying to write characters of color and often falling a bit short in terms of representation. I will do my best to treat these characters with respect, but this is Ruth and Idgie’s love story, so the other plots and layers will not feature heavily.

The ride back from Valdosta was strange. Julian and George sat in the back of the old automobile to hold onto all of Ruth’s things that hadn’t fit at her feet while Idgie blabbered like a bluejay until she wore herself out in that nervous giddiness that follows surviving high-stakes trouble. Besides, the very prospect of bringing Ruth back had been enough to keep her feeling like she was levitating about three feet off the ground since the minute she’d read what was inside the envelope. Ruth, on the other hand, was tucked into herself against the car door, occasionally giving Idgie a weak smile. Mostly, though, she just closed her eyes to let herself feel the warm, early autumn wind on her face and held herself together, her body not quite catching up with the fact that she was safe. Yet, every time she looked over at Idgie, she was able to believe that a little bit more. 

The Threadgoode house made such a fuss of trying not to make too much of a fuss over Ruth that it wasn’t too long before she headed back where they’d made up her old room with fresh sheets and all for a lie down. Idgie spent the rest of the evening almost like a soldier on patrol outside Ruth’s door so she could be there if she needed anything. They had their supper on an old tray, the sunset orange streamed through the space in the thin lace curtains onto Ruth’s skin. They ate together, Idgie sitting on the foot of the bed, leaning against one of the tall corner posts. She tried to coax Ruth into taking more than a few nibbles of Sipsey and Ninny’s biscuits with gravy, lima beans, and chocolate pie heaped onto their plates, “You better hurry up and eat your share or I’ll eat it for you.” But Ruth hadn’t much of an appetite so Idgie just made her promise she’d eat more the next day. 

That night, Idgie tossed and turned in her own bed, the reality of what Ruth had been through pushing out the euphoria of having her back. Every time she closed her eyes, Ruth’s expression on that staircase came back. That look of resignation and hopefulness, of shrinking fear and unstoppable courage all stirred up together on her soft, pale face. Worst of all, Idgie couldn’t shake away the thought that she may have been able get Ruth out of there sooner. If she had barrelled through the doors and dragged her to safety the minute she knew he’d been hurting her. 

But it was Ruth’s life and she’d let Ruth decide how she wanted it to go. Even if a part of her had wanted to just say “to Hell with your waiting for the _right_ time, you’re getting out of here,” she knew deep down that the last thing Ruth had needed was another person trying to control her, even if it was for her own safety. For the past however many years, Ruth had been quietly relinquished of control of her own life. How she escaped that was the one thing she _could_ control. She’d been steadily riding this train she’d felt obligated to board and had no say in where it was going. It was her call when the terrain was clear enough to jump. Idgie just needed to be there beside her, even if she’d been tempted to push her out. These were all things Idgie knew in her heart, but as she looked up from her pillow, watching the soft shadows of the tree branches outside move across the ceiling, she still wished like everything there was more she’d been able to do sooner. 

Idgie hadn’t known she’d dozed off when she was lulled from sleep by a creak of the bedroom door and quiet satin slippers gliding across the floor. She was blurrily aware it was Ruth before she was even fully awake. The nudge at her shoulder had her snapping up to her elbows, reaching for Ruth’s silhouette in the dark.

“What’s the matter, honey?” she asked, voice low and urgent, blinking to try and make out where Ruth bent over her. “You alright?” Idgie managed to catch one of Ruth’s arms with one hand and cup her face with the other, blinking to try and make out her expression.

“I’m fine,” Ruth assured her in a hushed tone. She stood up straight and looked down where Idgie sat upright so her hand could follow Ruth’s movement until their palms met and loosely clasped together. Idgie could just barely see her now in the square of dim moonlight from the window. She wore one of those same hairnets like she always had, and a white silk slip beneath a lilac cardigan with little white buttons. Being too tired to unpack everything yet, she’d borrowed the cardigan from Ninny, who was a good bit taller than Ruth, so the sleeves came down past Ruth’s tiny wrists. She’d complained of a nighttime chill, but Idgie knew she just wanted to hide the bruises. “Can I lie beside you for a little while?”

“Course you can!” without hesitation, Idgie shifted herself to the other side of the bed and lifted the quilt that had belonged to her bedroom for as long as she could remember. It was buttercup yellow and sage green and camel brown with triangles in the pattern of the forbidden fruit tree repeating in all the corners. It was the very first quilt that Mama Threadgoode had made as a girl, and therefore, the worst quality, full of little beginners mistakes and lopsided stitches that nobody besides the person who’d made it would ever really notice unless they went looking for them. Seeing as Idgie would never have been able to tell the difference between a sorry quilt and a prize-winning quilt, she slept just fine beneath an adequate one. That is when she’d slept here at all and not off at George’s or by the river.

The magnitude of what they were doing didn’t occur to either of them until Ruth curled up against Idgie’s side tucking her head onto her chest and Idgie wrapped her arm around her. It was the most intimate thing they’d ever done, physically. What would have been nothing more than comforting affection exchanged between any of the other countless friends-like-family that rotated in and out of the Threadgoode house, was something altogether different as Ruth felt Idgie’s heart pound through her thin cotton undershirt. The last time Ruth lived here, Idgie had been a sixteen with feelings she didn’t fully understand and Ruth was turning twenty-one with responsibilities that she saw no viable path but through. Now they were both in their twenties with nothing to lose. 

The most Ruth had ever dared let herself do all those summers ago was to kiss Idgie’s cheek. The booze in her system had clouded her inhibitions long enough to press her lips to Idgie’s river-soaked skin, but fortunately, her sense of propriety was still present enough to stop her from doing anything truly crazy. Though imagining it was sometimes all that got her through nights when Frank forced himself on her, she’d close her eyes and imagine that she was back in the river. Or when her mother was in agony and Frank wouldn’t stop shouting and everything seemed too loud, she’d think of the quiet stillness of the Alabama sun and the shade from that big old tree with nothing to listen to but the distant buzzing of bees and Idgie’s tall tales. 

Letting out a sigh, Ruth settled closer, curling her knees up beneath the blankets so her bare legs pressed into the pajama pants Idgie wore, an old blue cotton pair of Buddy’s with thin white stripes that she had to tie extra tight around her waist. 

“You sure you’re okay?” Idgie began to run a thumb back and forth on a seam of the cardigan. 

Ruth nodded against her shoulder and replied, “Couldn’t sleep, is all. Just about jumped out of skin any time there was a noise outside.”

“You know you’re safe here, Ruth.”

“I know that,” Ruth said, “Forgot where I was whenever I closed my eyes. My mind kept playing tricks on me and telling me I was still in that old bed and he’d be coming up the stairs.”

Idgie slid down onto the pillow so that she could lie on her side face-to-face with Ruth, their noses only a few inches apart. With big, earnest eyes she whispered, “I’m not gonna let him anywhere near you.” 

“Well,” Ruth let an elegant finger begin to draw slow circles on the back of Idgie’s hand, “He’s about five times your size.” 

“Then it’ll be five times more humiliating for him when I beat him, won’t it?” Idgie smirked. 

Ruth couldn’t help but chuckle and roll her eyes a bit, murmuring, “Idgie Threadgoode,” in soft amusement. 

“Besides,” Idgie went on, “He’d be even dumber than he looks if he shows up in a town where there’s not a single soul who wouldn’t do anything for you.” 

“I don’t want him to hurt anybody else neither,” Ruth said with downcast eyes, her long black lashes contrasting starkly even in the shadows against her skin as she watched where her finger continued to move across Idgie’s hand. 

Cupping Ruth’s face to meet her eyes, Idgie’s voice was full of resolve when she said, “It’s never gonna come to that, okay?” Ruth didn’t know how to respond. “We’re gonna be fine.”

Ruth nodded, and Idige pressed their foreheads together on the pillow. They both closed their eyes and took long, deep breaths in unison. Ruth wasn’t certain that Idgie was right. But Idgie seemed certain. And as she felt herself slowly drifting towards sleep, she reminded herself that no more than a couple weeks ago the thought of being back here with Idgie seemed like an impossibility. Yet here she was. So who’s to say that there wouldn’t come a day where she could be as certain as Idgie that they would be fine, even though she couldn’t feel that now? She thought about how unbelieving she would have been just a few months back if she had been able to send a sign to herself and say that it would all be over before the leaves started to turn. It pulled something deep from within her chest to think that when the next summer came rolling in, there may be some hot, sticky night, rocking on the porch, cradling her baby in her arms, bruises long gone, and watching the fireflies flicker in the Threadgoode’s magnolia trees, when she’d look back and wish she could tell herself right now that Idgie was right to be so certain. You don’t turn out as stubborn and sure as Idgie, she thought, if life didn’t have a funny way of proving you right most of the time. 

They fell asleep, hands clasped and noses touching, and Ruth having pretty much convinced herself that every time the sun rose, she’d be a little more certain that they were going to be fine.


	2. Chapter Two

The sun and Idgie had both been up for a good while when Ruth awoke the next day. She was disoriented, but as she rolled over and blinked in the bright, mid-morning rays, she let out a sigh of relief. Looking around, she noticed that Idgie had tucked the quilt around her when she’d left without waking her. Idgie was off doing whatever it was she did in the mornings. Fishing with George or causing trouble for somebody somewhere. Ruth didn’t mind where Idgie was because she was too busy smiling into her pillowcase at the thought of Idgie having woken up beside her and quietly tiptoeing around the room before tucking her in and slipping out the door. 

After a late breakfast of grits and a soft boiled egg in a little egg cup with some sliced up peaches, Ruth spent the rest of the morning unpacking her things and getting them situated in her room. Several Threadgoode siblings poked their heads in to see how she was doing, and she continued to arrange and rearrange to the sound of the family chatter and comings and goings in the background. She couldn’t recall the last time she felt this tranquil. 

By the time Idgie came back, she had all her clothes spread out across every surface because she kept changing her mind about how she wanted to organize things. Ruth smiled softly as she registered Idgie’s voice greeting and joking with everybody as she wound down the hall and then came through the ajar door. 

“Well, hey!” Idgie said, sounding cheerfully out of breath, “Did your clothes multiply since you got here?” Ruth briefly turned over her shoulder to give Idgie a look and was met with a huge grin and a cheeky, “I didn’t know fabric could reproduce.” Her nose rosy with sun and her golden curls stuck to her forehead with sweat, Idgie made a big production of navigating through the piles of clothes to join Ruth in the middle of the room. “Brought you these,” Idgie said looking up at her, holding out her hands and unfolding a cluster of dark purple berries from an old faded cloth.

Ruth was still mentally reorganizing for a brief moment before she turned to look and asked, “What are they?” as she reached for one.

“Blueberries,” Idgie replied as Ruth examined it. 

“They’re too small to be blueberries,” she observed. 

“They’re a kind of wild blueberry, not the kind you get at the grocer,” Idgie explained, “Deer berries, just about the last of the season, too. They’re even better than the regular kind. I promise you’ll like them.” 

“How do I know they aren’t poison?” 

“Cause I picked them!”

“How do  _ you _ know they aren’t poison?” the corner of Ruth’s mouth turned up as she said it.

“I’ve been eating them my whole life, and I turned out just fine.”

“That depends on who you ask,” Ruth popped the berry into her mouth and smiled, reaching to take the cloth from Idgie and moving some dresses out of the way to make room for them to sit on the edge of the bed. 

“How’re you feeling today?” Idgie asked, careful not to get dirt in any of Ruth’s ruffles. 

Ruth nodded and said, “I’m fine,” as she ate a few more berries, “A little sore is all.” 

“From…?” Idgie tilted her head, not wanting to have to say out loud what Frank had done, and Ruth gave another nod. “There anything I can get you?” Ruth shook her head, so Idgie gestured around at the clothes strewn about the room, “You need any help with all this?”

“You’d only make things worse,” Ruth teased, nudging Idgie with her elbow. Before Idgie could think of a retort, Ruth rolled her shoulders and added, “I’d just about die for a nice long soak in a great big tub, though.” 

“I reckon I can make that happen,” Idgie grabbed a few berries from Ruth’s hand. 

“Oh, don’t listen to me,” Ruth said, glancing back down to get a few more for herself, “I’m just being silly.”

When Ruth looked up, Idgie noticed she’d gotten some of the berry juice on her upper lip. She had to hold back a laugh anytime Ruth was unaware that something was askew with her prim perfection. There was that one Sunday morning all those years ago when Ruth was living here before when she hadn’t laughed at one of Idgie’s jokes so Idgie had let her head off to church without telling her she had lipstick on her teeth. 

“You got something...” Idgie said leaning closer and beginning to reach a thumb towards Ruth‘s mouth to wipe the smudge off. Ruth didn’t move, her eyes fixed on Idgie’s, which were focused on the tender motion of pressing the pad of her thumb across the soft pink of Ruth’s skin until it was clean. Ruth held her breath. She felt every inch of the closeness between them like a heatwave. 

“There you go.” Idgie declared. But before she could shift back, Ruth had flown her free hand to the side of Idgie‘s face and held her there for a kiss so sudden it seemed to startle the both of them. It didn’t take but a second or two before Idgie was kissing her back with as much vigor, letting her hand drop gently to Ruth’s thigh. The kiss was long and quiet and fierce, tongues and lips tingling with the tang of the berries. They probably would’ve kept right on going until suppertime, only breaking apart once they heard footsteps in the hall. Ruth appeared about as stunned as Idgie felt as they looked at each other and slowly caught their breath. 

“I...” Idgie started, “I’ve been wanting to do that just about my whole life.”

Overcome, Ruth wordlessly pulled Idgie to her in an embrace, careful not to let the berries drop as Idgie wrapped her arms around her.

“Idgie Threadgoode,” she whispered into Idgie’s hair. Tucking her face into Ruth’s neck, Idgie kissed along the exposod skin above the Peter Pan collar of the dark green dress Ruth wore. They held each other there for a long time, clinging to each other in the middle of the menagerie of all of Ruth’s frills. 

“What are we gonna do about it?” Ruth softly asked when they pulled apart, eyes wide and searching. 

“Well,” Idige said, “We’re just gonna have to make it work our own way.”

“You sure?” 

“I’m sure!” Idgie tipped her head and tucked a loose curl behind Ruth’s ear, “Are  _ you _ sure?”

“I promised your Mama and Papa I wouldn’t ever leave again,” Ruth said, “I never dreamed it would be possible…” she trailed off.

Idgie’s brow crinkled in mischief, “This girl I loved a while back used to say ‘never say never.’ Wish I could remember her name.” 

“Alright,” Ruth smiled.

“We’ll figure it out,” Idgie assured her, “You, me, and the one you’ve got growing in there.” Her hand dropped Ruth’s stomach, which was barely showing any signs yet, but they folded their hands over each other for a minute, “How’s that sound?”

“All I know is I’ve never slept better in my life than I did next to you last night,” Ruth said, “And don’t believe that God would make me this happy to be next to somebody that wasn’t the person I was supposed to be next to.”

Idgie looked over, amazed and bewildered at her soft, determined face, the way the sunlight seemed to shine from her, and it was the first time in her life Idgie’d felt anything like reverence. She wondered if anybody had ever been this in love with anybody else before, and then she saw in Ruth’s eyes everything that she felt for Ruth streaming back towards her, and she could have just about cried. So instead she said after a pause, “Well, sounds like I might have to take God out for a drink and thank him for going to the trouble.”

Ruth’s laugh just made that angelic glow all the more bright, and Idgie couldn’t stop laughing either. 


	3. Chapter 3

That night, once Ruth was all unpacked and organized and they’d had their supper of chicken, chard, and cherry pie, Idgie piled her up in the car and drove down to Eva’s by the River Club with the wagon wheel out front. That three-legged dog was still just a stumbly little puppy, and she still had that old scruffy blind one with the gray patches. They both came out at Eva’s ankles to greet Ruth and Idgie when they arrived. The sky was a sort of soft purple, and Eva had a hug for them each, the long flowy sleeves of her dressing gown swishing gracefully as she welcomed them in. 

Eva’s place was a bit run down and shabby on the outside but she’d filled it with a lot of nice old-fashioned things, not all of which held together very well, but of the ones that worked alright was an old claw-foot bathtub she’d found at some estate sale in Birmingham and had one of the boys drive it back for her on the back of of his pick-up truck. Idgie could remember the afternoon she’d spent scrubbing rust and filth off the old thing, so she figured she’d earned the right to bring Ruth by for a soak in it. 

As the water was heating up, Eva mixed herself a drink in an old glass pitcher and told them all the gossip about who was stepping out on whom and who owed whom money. Idgie cracked jokes (“Oh you don’t say, Grady Kilgore? A bad sport? I never would’ve guessed”) from the floor where she pet the dogs while Ruth listened and pet Idgie’s hair. It was the kind of night Idgie would have already loved, a cool breeze down by the river with the sound of the last summer crickets outside, but having Ruth there made it almost too blissful to comprehend. She had to keep glancing up at her to remember she was real. 

Once they’d gotten the water good and ready, Idgie called Ruth over and Eva excused herself to the porch with a pack of smokes, the dogs at her feet. Ruth came through the bathroom door and let out a sigh of relief. 

“That oughta do it,” Idgie declared, getting up from the side of the tub where she’d been testing the water. She started to go, telling Ruth she’d be outside with Eva and just to holler if she needed anything, but as she crossed through the doorway, Ruth took her wrist.

“Stay,” Ruth said, and Idgie’s eyes went wide as she looked up at Ruth’s, unsure of what to say, so Ruth just gestured behind her, “Help me with the buttons?” 

Taking a few steps onto the old tile, Ruth waited with her back facing Idgie and her eyes cast down. Idgie opened and closed her mouth a few times before closing the distance between them and reaching for the top button, a pale green contrasting against the emerald fabric. Had Idgie been thinking clearly, it would have occurred to her that Ruth really didn’t need help with the buttons, seeing as she’d been able to get the dress on just fine. But she wouldn’t have that realization until a few days later, at which point the moment had passed to tease Ruth about it, because it had taken so long to dawn on her that the laugh was at her own expense now.

As Idige managed each button open, trying to school her slightly shaky fingers, the angry dark splotches of the boot print bruise on Ruth’s back became more and more visible above her thin slip. When the last one came through its buttonhole and Ruth let the dress drop to the floor, she didn’t move. Idgie thought she might be waiting for her to go, but then Ruth’s head tilted ever so slightly, expectantly. Taking a slow inhale, Idgie reached for the thin straps of Ruth’s slip and pulled them off of Ruth’s shoulders, her eyes following where her fingers brushed goosebumps down Ruth’s arms. Idgie simply watched from a foot or two behind her as Ruth’s hand went to the back of her head to pull out a few pins to let her curls cascade down her back before pulling her silky peach bralette over her head. Wordlessly, Idgie swallowed and extended an arm for Ruth to balance against as she stepped out of the matching flowy panties with frills around the hem. The last of Ruth’s things dropped to the floor and she stood for a moment or two, not yet facing Idgie, but still holding onto her arm. Idige barely let her eyes wander over the back of Ruth’s bare form, but her stomach was flipping over itself like when she’d do somersaults down the hill by the bridge with Buddy, scuffing up their clothes with grass stains and tumbling against every root until they were dizzy and disoriented. 

Dizzy and disoriented were two words that fit how she was feeling right about now, but they were cut with this sharp steadiness that had a way of overriding everything else when it came to looking out for Ruth. Shifting to take Ruth’s hand with one of hers, Idgie placed her other hand on the small of Ruth’s back, her skin cool to the touch, to help her balance as she stepped over the steep walls of the tub and into the water. A contented smile crossed Ruth’s face as Idgie helped her slide into the hot water, carefully shielding the smatterings of bruises in different stages of fading all over her body from hitting against the cast iron. Ruth adjusted herself while Idgie took a second to gather Ruth’s things and hang them on the row of hooks on the back of the door and put the little hairpins in her pocket. Just as she reached for the round white doorknob, Idgie felt Ruth’s eyes on her back, silently repeating the plea to stay. 

So she stayed. Ruth was unselfconscious as she watched Idgie move to sit on the edge of the bathtub, fully clothed but for the filthy shoes Eva had made her leave out on the porch. Only one of Idgie’s bare feet still touched the tile floor as she sat there, unsure of where she was allowed to let her eyes travel, so she tried to keep them on Ruth’s face, despite how beautiful all of Ruth was, from her collarbones just above the water to the way her knees still gently tucked up together to make room for her long legs.

“This what you had in mind?” Idgie asked after a while. 

“Better,” Ruth smiled and sank deeper into the water, tipping her head back a little so that some of her hair dipped below the surface, swirling slowly like a nymph’s. After a moment, she winced as the boot print on her back pressed against the slope of the tub. She shook her head and sat back upright, the water pooling around her torso. Before Ruth even had to say anything, Idgie’s eyes went flitting across the bathroom until she saw a small stack of white hand towels rolled on the stand at the foot of the tub. She reached for one and said, “Try this,” dipping it in the bath and then moving to gently place it on Ruth’s back, squeezing it out so that the warm water dripped over where her skin was all purple-brown and sore. 

“That’s nice,” Ruth whispered, as Idgie then guided her to lean back, letting the towel roll cushion the bruise from the hard surface. As she settled back into the water, closing her eyes, she sighed, “You’re too good to me.”

“That’s impossible,” Idgie said, drying her hands on her thick brown trousers, “You’re too good for anybody to be too good to you.”

Ruth opened her eyes to look over at Idgie, and without changing her expression asked, “Are you making fun of me?”

“No!” Idige laughed a little at the thought. 

“I thought you might be calling me a stuck up little Church girl again.”

“Well, that’s true, too,” Idgie rolled her eyes a little, “But you’ve got the kind of good heart that everybody can feel whether you went to Church every Sunday or not. Besides, what is it they’re always saying in there? Do unto others? You’ve been doing good unto others your whole life. I reckon it’s about damn time you had some good done unto you.” 

Ruth looked at her for a second, but couldn’t find the words so she just smiled softly and sunk back comfortably into the water, letting her eyes fall shut again, taking in a deep breath of the smell of the rose bath salts that Eva had sprinkled in for her, the expensive ones. For the first time, Idgie let her eyes trail from Ruth’s slightly wet lashes, down to where here hair flowed over her breasts beneath the water, to the sweet little mole on her arm, down the fading bruises along her ribs, to the soft hardly noticeable sway of her pregnant belly, to the patch of dark hair between her legs, and along her thighs all the way down to her feet. She even had pretty shin bones, Idgie thought, before glancing back up at Ruth’s face. Ruth’s eyes were open again, and Idige felt herself go a little red, unsure of how long Ruth had been watching her staring. But Ruth just smiled at her and closed her eyes once more. 

When the water had gone cold and Ruth’s skin was all pruney, Idgie helped her get dried off and dressed, and they made their way back to the main room where Eva sat in front of her vanity and doing her makeup for the evening’s outing. 

“You got anything to drink?” Idgie asked immediately.

“Punch!” Eva gestured a hand towards the pitcher of pinkish-orange on the counter of her kitchenette. 

Idgie wrinkled her nose, “You got any beer?” 

“Next door.”

“Well,” Idige cocked her head, “C’mon!”

Eva sighed in feigned resentment and gestured for Idgie to follow her out through the back where the dogs lay content and asleep on their usual spots on her back screened-in porch. 

“How is she?” Eva asked under her breath as they walked across the grass. 

“Gorgeous,” Idgie replied thoughtlessly before correcting herself and saying, “I mean, she’s beat up pretty bad, though.” 

“Yeah?”

“Some of it’s from yesterday when we went to get her, but she’s got marks of just about every different color all over looking like they’ve been there for a week or two weeks or a couple days,” Idgie said, and Eva sucked air between her teeth in a sympathetic clicking noise. “I get the feeling he didn’t give her much of a break from it.” 

It was a weeknight, so the River Club wasn’t too busy, allowing Eva to pretty much come and go as she pleased leaving things in the hands of the bartender. They went in through the back to the great big ice box, and Eva pulled a six pack of Blue Ribbons and said, “Thank the Lord she’s free from him now.”

“I’ll tell you what, Eva, if that man he shows his face round here, it’ll be more than bruises he’s leaving with,” Idige said, taking the pack to carry for her, “In fact, he’ll be lucky if I let him out alive.”

**Author's Note:**

> The characters do not belong to me.
> 
> This is a work in progress, and my goal is to keep it regularly updated with chapters once they are complete. That said, since I am posting chapters before the whole piece is written, there may be some instances where I need to go back and edit things for consistency or polish as I go. I have it fairly well planned, so hopefully that won't be too much of an issue, and it won't be anything major. I just figured it would be fun to have y'all along for this as I go.


End file.
